Imagine that you are a student back in school. You find out at the beginning of the semester about a big term paper due on a specific date. Naturally, you spent weeks preparing your research and writing your paper. You even had it completed a week before the due date! Or did you?
Like many students, you might have waited until the very last minute to write the paper. It’s a classic scenario, avoiding a project until it’s down to the wire. Those hours that you spend completing the assignment feel stressful and typically lead to a lot of mental anguish on your part. This is just one example of how avoidance leads to increased suffering.
Many of us try to avoid the stress of everyday situations. We attempt to sidestep pain, anguish, and discomfort, but this avoidance leads to increased suffering; everything is worse in the end because of the avoidance, but why? And how can we stop this behavior, avoid the unnecessary pressure, and manage life head-on?
Why do people resort to avoidance?
There’s a reason why we avoid things that we perceive to be difficult or hard. It’s easier than facing them upfront. If you avoid the problem, then it isn’t an issue. Until it becomes an issue.
This approach doesn’t mean we are crazy, abnormal, or even cowardly. Not at all. It’s that we are not genuinely avoiding the actual problem. Instead, we are avoiding all of the emotions tied to that problem, such as:
- Frustration
- Anger
- Overwhelm
- Pressure
- Anxiety
- Inadequacy
- Rejection
These and similar emotions are challenging to experience. So, the answer often is not to face them at all.
Honestly, we do this all the time with issues in our life. Whether it’s doing that massive pile of laundry or having a challenging conversation with our partner, the concept is still the same. We don’t want to deal with the negative emotions associated with the action, so we avoid it.
How Avoidance Leads to Increased Suffering
Of course, there is a problem with avoidance: it doesn’t work. The problem never goes away. But we continue to wish it were true! After all, how many times in our lives have we wished that a problem just disappeared?
In reality, life doesn’t work that way. You can’t stick your head in the sand. If you avoid the problem now, you will still have to deal with it in the future.
By the time you address the issue, your stress levels have increased significantly. You likely associate more mental energy with the problem than it deserves. Also, particular constraints, such as time, tend to make smaller problems much more extensive if left unchallenged. This standoffishness all leads to more mental anguish and suffering.
But what can you do about this situation?
How Can You Use DBT to Avoid Avoidance?
Avoiding avoidance might seem like a double whammy, but several things can prevent you from falling into the avoidance trap, including:
- Acknowledging the reality of the situation at hand. This reality is what you have to work with, and you can’t avoid it.
- Break down large problems into smaller ones.
- Prioritize what needs accomplishing first.
- Make a plan for how to accomplish these tasks.
- Follow through by meeting a deadline (even a self-imposed one).
You will find that you can tackle the problem better when you set aside your emotions and look at it objectively. When avoidance leads to increased suffering, facing the situation and taking a step-by-step approach can help you avoid the suffering, instead of avoiding life!
Utilizing Opposite Action
Using “opposite action” means that you choose an action that is the exact opposite of what your emotions are telling you to do. Suppose your gut feeling is to avoid doing something, such as not folding the laundry straight out of the dryer. Naturally, the opposite action would be to bite the bullet and get the laundry folded promptly after the dryer buzzes.
This tactic is interesting because it requires your brain’s logical side to take control as opposed to letting your emotions totally dictate your actions. The opposite action approach empowers you to stop, think, and make choices that align more with your values.
For example, you pride yourself on getting a job done right. Does avoidance align with those values? The short answer is that most likely, it doesn’t. So, you choose an action that is more in keeping with your values by at least starting the project.
Suffolk DBT Can Help When Avoidance Leads to Increased Suffering
If you have been struggling with avoidance, be gentle with yourself. Everyone, at some point, encounters avoidance. However, if it’s increasing your suffering and has become a chronic issue for you, ask for help. Please reach out today to learn about the treatment options available. You are not alone in avoidance, you are not alone in suffering, and you don’t have to try to change your life alone either. Our Suffolk County therapists, and DBT, can help!
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Suffolk DBT proudly provides quality dialectical behavior therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, at their offices in Manhattan and Long Island, New York and online. Their experienced therapists specialize in serving teens, children, adults, and college students struggling with depression, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, and self-harm. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills and treatment can help you or your kids to manage emotions and work through life’s challenges. Suffolk DBT Manhattan and Long Island offer a free screening call so you can get started right away.
Frequently Asked Questions About DBT For Avoidance
DBT skills that challenge you to try instead of avoid are your best choices.
If you’re avoiding emotions or situations, try the How or What mindfulness skills.
If you’re impulsively avoiding, try the STOP skill to catch yourself and re-engage after observing the moment.
If you’re avoiding a conversation, try the DEAR MAN interpersonal effectiveness skill to help you structure your conversation in a way that makes it more approachable and less upsetting.
If you’re struggling with a situation in the future, try the Cope Ahead skill to help you manage your fear through planning and self-trust.
These DBT skills and more can help you avoid avoidance!
Many of us are so used to avoidance that we barely notice it, until it starts shrinking our life way down, or causing severe suffering.
DBT helps you remember to use your skills a few different ways.
- DBT skills groups help you practice skills in calm situations, so they more easily come to mind when you need them most.
- DBT diary cards remind you in the moment that there are DBT skills you can use, by prompting you to record which ones you choose in response to emotions and behaviors throughout the week.
- On-call therapist support can help you remember in life’s toughest moments what you want to do, through brief discussions of possible DBT skills to use to make the moment easier.
It’s not always easy to tell if you’re avoiding things, especially in this busy world. We can come up with 100 reasonable excuses for not doing something, not having a conversation, not going to a party.
When you notice you are choosing to not do, say, try, etc., use mindfulness to try to find out your “why”. Sit with the moment, notice your thoughts and the feelings in your body, try to name your feelings, notice the situation around you, and let the thoughts and feelings come and go.
Once you have a mindful picture of the moment, you can better understand if you’re skipping that holiday party because you really are so worn down that a quiet night at home will help you recuperate, or if you’re so overwhelmed at the thought of a conversation with your mother-in-law that you’re skipping what would otherwise be a fun evening.